I know nothing of any of the actions of the owner whatever he did. Sounds like an idiot. That is one way to stifle a system.

Anyway, I have always enjoyed Palladium and always will. I honestly like it better then 2nd addition. THAC0 never did make sense to me and I always thought it was a stupid way to run battles. I like the extra dice roll to defend yourself. That is just one little thing that I can immediately point out but could probably write an essay on it. I only played 2nd edition because that is what everybody else liked, but anytime I ran a game I tried to make it Palladium. I haven't had much of a chance to research or play 3rd edtion (I got the books) but I can't see it displacing my first love of Palladium.

I've only just started playing in a Palladium game, online in January.....playing an earth warlock. I find the spells to be better than a druid's in DnD, and it's less complicated concerning dice rolls, armor class, thaco, etc. There seems to be more emphasis on role playing than dice rolling.

I have two of the Rifts manual, but really am not interested in a futuristic, mechanized world.

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The moonlight reflects off her silvery-blue fur, tis the she-wolf stalking through the night.

I'd still advise against the later world books, Captain. Quite literally there are some obscene things in there - a pistol which can, potentially, deal 5D6 damage in a single shot. (Naruni Plasma Ejector)... And from the Phase World dimension book, I give you the HI-80 laser rifle, capable of dealing enough damage from a single clip to completely splatter any foe across the cosmos. Don't even ask about phase weapons.

Kevin also gets overly infatuated with Vampire Intelligences and Alien Intelligences. How many Ultrapowerful Supernatural Entities can a single planet hold!? Especially ones which're supposed to be against each other, and yet which seem to coexist with only an interest in squishing the native monkey life!?!?

I'll admit that Palladium has a fairly solid system, I like the way armor works, and the way magic works.It doesn't stop me from hating Kevin and the later books in the Rifts series because of Kevin being a self-important megamunchkin from the Abyssal Depths - particularly one who can't be bothered to waste time cross-checking his pet theories against science.

The 'counter-orbit debris field' in space wouldn't work. QED.

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"I grab the sword!""Mmkay, you're dead.""What!?""You just grabbed the sword of the god you were just personally responsible for banishing from the world for the next ten thousand years. You just got zapped by around a billion volts of Angry Divine Power. You're dead."

In essence, a thick layer of dust, rocks, and assorted debris set up in medium-low orbit, with their motion orbiting the planet being retrograde to the Earth's rotation. The effect, for things leaving the atmosphere normally, is to effectively be hit with a double-velocity hailstorm of debris.

The problem with this is that in the 300+ years since the Cataclysm of Rifts Earth, such a debris field would've decayed, the vast majority of it falling into the atmosphere and burning up. Such a debris field needs constant maintenance.

Admittedly, in the fairly-rare 'After the Bomb'/'Rifts Space' supplement, they switch the claim to killsats and active countermeasures by the people surviving in orbit after the entire Time of the Rifts, but it still smells fishy in the extreme. Kevin doesn't like to let science fact get in the way of his munchkin wet dreams.

By the way, Captain, take a look after the Triax, Soutch America 2, Phase World, and most of the latest books produced. Triax is commonly called the Big Book of Toys, South America 2 brings shudders to those on the Palladium Mailing List (once more unofficial after a stint of being Official), Phase World has Cosmo Knight and the HI-80, as well as Phase weapons, and most of the latest books are subject to Power Creep From Hell.

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"I grab the sword!""Mmkay, you're dead.""What!?""You just grabbed the sword of the god you were just personally responsible for banishing from the world for the next ten thousand years. You just got zapped by around a billion volts of Angry Divine Power. You're dead."

...You'd be best off just ignoring the Phase World books, in that case. They're optimized for munchkin effects.

I personally have never actually seen SA2, but heard the effects of it.

However, modification is a beautiful thing, and the Palladium system is fairly easy to modify. Provided Kevin doesn't notice and throw a tantrum, of course.

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"I grab the sword!""Mmkay, you're dead.""What!?""You just grabbed the sword of the god you were just personally responsible for banishing from the world for the next ten thousand years. You just got zapped by around a billion volts of Angry Divine Power. You're dead."

Who cares? We gots dragons and lycanthropes and pirate penguins and some deeply silly and profoundly wierd people here. And that's just the people who regularly post. If we can't take Supertwink, who can?

One of the original universal system games. Tons of Crunchybits and very opinionated gaming. The system work well, but it is limited in spaces. Like Gurps, you can't easily make things up for it, and the rules are very, very structured. I personally prefer Hero, Jags, and Unisystem to Gurps and most other universal or toolkit games. Just so you know where I am coming from.

Rifts is a cool idea, unfortunately the people who make these books do not understand the concept of "play balance". Very few of the Rifts regions are balanced within themselves and almost none of the regions are balanced against each other. There are sooo many "sweet spots" that allow you to fork the rules, it is almost unforgivable. If you want to play this kind of game, get TORG or Fringeworthy.

Use the Rifts books like Gurps books, take what you want, reject the rest, and use the system you like.

As a long time player of rpgs as well as a soon to be published author for palladium, I feel a need to put in my two cents.

If I had to summarize the palladium system, it would be in the following manner.

I love the worlds created, but hate the rules.

I don't think the rules need a total rewrite, but a serious clairification is in order.

The first things I would do if I were in charge of palladium would be the following.

1. Organize all of the rules into a single easy to use book. A megaversal rule book has been talked about since the end of time, but it keeps being ignored by the powers that be.

1. It help reduce confusion in the system as a whole.

2. It would be a great reference instead of lugging around 30 odd books. I still find it extremely irritating that despite the perception rules being in the Nightbane book for quite a few years now, it was not added to the Rifts Game Master Guide. A Similar problem occured with making the various spells rules in Through the Glass Darkly (a very good magical reference for ANY RPG) were not transfered to their rifts book of magic. Despite being excellent rules which solve many of the problems with palladium, they are not combined with the system as a whole.

Another example of this would be the saving throws. I've seen 2 different numbers for save verses pain, and after compiling the saving throws in a rifter, they forgot to put it in the Rifts Games Master guide.

I find this to be highly Irrititing.

3. It would reduce costs for palladium: Palladium prides itself in keeping its costs down, which should be respected. This would help, by not having to reduce the text that is reguritated in book after book. The rifts games master guide helps this a bit, but I would prefer a universal book with tweaks for the particular system.

4. It would give us a good overall look on the system, and the reduce the need for unecessary updates. A classic of the example would be the -10 fiasco. In Conversions Book one, there was a perfectly good rule about -6 penalties involving gunfire and listing a catch all rule involving those that are special (such as a juicer or a cyberknight) that could use this rule, which included P.P. bonuses). Because people couldn't find this blasted rule, Kevin Siembieda reinvented the wheel and created a horrible rule that involves -10 to all firearms with no bonuses to P.P, totally ignoring the previous update and throwing one heck of a monkeywrench into my enjoyment.

5. Cross Indexing!!!!: Keep it so ruthlessly organize so that it is bloody easy to find anything. An index is absolutely manditory and it will keep the fustrations to a minimum.

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When an "alpha manuscript" is completed, then send a series of rules lawyers through them to clean it up to reduce future headaches. Then I would tweak the following:

1. I would retool all rules to minimize differences between color text and rules. Palladium has some incredible stories and feeling, but the sad part is often it is impossible to duplicate similar actions using their rules.

2. I like the idea of templates, but would probably stick with the O.C.C. system (or education system depending on which palladium system I was using), just to keep continuity.

3. Simplify the attributes, giving a +% or + bonuses (or penalities), using a baseline of 9-10 as a 0 bases, which wouldn't matter on the stat.

4. Modify the skills to allow certain skills to use different basis (which is easily acommidated with the new system). It feels like at present that you are pretty much rolling skills only when the G.M. doesn't want you to do something. I would stick with the percentage, but I would make a universal template for all percentages based on their overall difficulty (ex 70% +5% for an easy skill, 50% + 5% for a average skill and so on), and give a bonus for easy tasks and a penalty for difficult stats that is uniform.

I would also keep the skills that improve attributes and skills (one of its charm), but keep the returning rules found in Rifter #20, so that you don't just jack up on physical skills at the expense of other skills.

5. I would keep some of the elements of the system the same, but I would pretty much base all roles contested, and make it extremely clear which rolls can have P.P. bonuses. I would clairify what actions take how many melee attacks, so that there is no murkiness and make sure it is properly tested.

I would also probably also put strength on a sliding scale to make sure a minimum of information of explaning on information needs to be done between normal human, augmented human/strong d-bee, robotic and supernatural.

6. I actually kinda like making blast rules to increase probability of hitting, rather then additional damage, but would be willing to stick with new blast rules (based on weapon, rather then a bad rip off of their SDC ROF).

7. I would reduce M.D.C. considerably and restrict it to vehicles and power armor. I would also give it either a typical A.R. (if used piece metal), or natural A.R. (if fully environmental).

Additionally, I would not give power armor/giant robots additional attacks or bonuses to strike, unless it was specifically based on a particular special combat computer/special doo dad. The suit's advantages should be arms and armor (M.D.C.), not reflexes.

8. I would give a comprehensive definition for supernatural and creature of magic, and list out its requirements.

9. I would use the road hog rules, and update them for ease of use.

10. I would make the vampire a template for easy modification of d-bee races.

11. I would have a genero creature for every monster listing for easy use by the G.M. However, I would also give the variable stats for "special cases."

12. I would increase the dynamism in character generation. While some classes would have minimal dynamism, I would increase it for some to represent character development.

13. I would most definately keep the experience system and alignment systems. these are some of the best points palladium has going for it.

14. I would make a list of special abilities, and then assign them based on the critter or special abilities. This will reduce reinterpretation of old rules and explain how it would work most of the time. If there is an exception, it would be listed under the creature in question.

15. I would explain a quick explaination of modern systems and convert them to game play, as well as common ways to circumvent them.

im back from the gravesorry guys i was having some problems with mi c but im backok about palladium fantasy here at mexico we have been playing palladium since 1996 and now we are trying to play rifts if anyone needs info about the palladium fantasy game just ask and i will exlain whatever you want to know ok bye

palladium rocks

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the new gods of palladium have arrive you can run and hide but soon you willl die.